I will be entirely honest out the gate; This game is far, far too short, and has an abrupt, and annoying conclusion, that forces you into one of very few categories. While I DO recommend this for those who enjoy COG Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style games, I warn anyone that it will not end how you think it will, and is simply... Bland.
I had initially fallen in love with this game after playing the demo some odd years ago on the COG website, having liked the Mobster theme, and the setting and general premise were all top tier, in my opinion. So, upon seeing it finally up on steam, I jumped at the chance to buy it, alongside a few other games that caught my interest. My hopes were high, due to loving the demo so much.
However... (( Spoilers Ahead, please do mind them ))
A majority of the game IS the demo. After the demos end, there is barely anything left afterwards to play, and nothing that truly affects your ending in any material way. Or, at least, none that I could see after being forced to replay the game over and over and over again, due to not having the right stats to achieve the endings I was attempting.
I feel as though I was tricked by the demo, setting up the most interesting parts of the game, yet not really doing anything with said parts by the end. There was not enough attention paid to where it should have been, the focus trying to force you into an unwelcome romance with Alexander/Ellie, and to make you into less of an interesting character, by giving you supernatural powers.
The supernatural powers I would have been fine with, as I love a good genre flip... Yet, the way it was done was one of the worst ways I have ever seen in anything that I had even a vague interest in. It was handled akin to a fresh-faced 13 year old writer, newly acquainted with an anime fandom of your choice, writing whatever it was that seemed to come to their creative, and overly energetic mind.
Were it not obvious, I despise the forced romance with Alexander/Ellie. If I had a choice to not pursue it by the end, and to just completely ignore them, and instead romance The Pitt, Lulu, The Police Captain( Forgot his name, do forgive me ), The Dragon, or even The Bull, I would have been much happier. I would have taken anyone over Alexander/Ellie.
The character whom I had decided to play as was named Wulfric, as a nod to the fact he saw himself as nothing but a dog, to be commanded by The Bull and do whatever they told him to do. Religious, and regretful of how his life had turned out, but accepting of the fact he would never be more than a flee ridden mutt, doomed to die in the gutter. However, by the ending, he was forced into the role of being a power crazed lunatic, hellbent on rescuing a man who he loved, but was not interested in pursuing for romance, due to being a broken human - Yet the only ending I could complete with this build of the character, that did not involve going to purgatory, was the one where he and Alexander run off together. It was annoying, to say the least.
Speaking of; The Endings. They are all very specific stat-wise, and you cannot complete a majority of them if you play as a remorseful character, with a soft heart. You HAVE to play a certain way to get most endings, and while I generally do not have a problem with this, the fact of the matter is that it's frustrating in NOLA is Burning. I gladly replayed other games to get their various endings, but with this one it was an absolute slog, and I simply stopped caring at some point. Thus, I have not collected all that I could, as it was just... Too cumbersome of a task.
And, finally, it was underdeveloped. There is very little to this game, as I had previously stated, and it shows as it can be beaten within an hour, at most. The game could have gone for much, much longer, and expanded upon all of the things, plot points and the like, that it started, but finished in the most bland of ways. The writing in general is good, I enjoy the style quite a lot, but again, it would have been better if it were larger of a game, and allowed more freedom, and did not rely on stats as much for the ending.
In conclusion/tl;dr; It was 'Okay' at best. The story was too short, not enough time spent on expanding the characters or story, was tedious to replay, and was generally lackluster. Also let The Pitt live, and let me romance him since he very obviously had a crush on the PC, thank you.
